


Breakfast with Champions

by belncaz



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Complete, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fluff, Gen, Post-The King's Men, a little bit of swearing, implied andreil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-15 19:44:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10556656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belncaz/pseuds/belncaz
Summary: Wymack signs the Foxes up for a charity breakfast for kids. Things don’t go quite to plan, until they do - pretty much how the Foxes roll with anything.





	

   **A/N** : I saw a banner advertising a breakfast for kids’ athletics on my way to work today and so this happened. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯ . Characters are not mine, of course.

 

Breakfast with Champions

* * *

Wymack could practically feel the years slipping away from him as he stared at the ungodly mess his Foxes had created. He was too tense to even have a muscle twitch, too tired to even threaten them with marathons. The kitchen they were standing in was identifiable only by the hints of appliances that managed to surface from clouds of flour, puddles of everything from eggs to milk, sauces that had overrun their pots to spill over onto the stove, pans and spatulas flung around the room with a wild abandon that clearly suggested they’d been used as weapons, and a host of other atrocities his brain was refusing to process just yet. The acrid smell of something burnt and something sour combined with a faint hint of cinnamon and hickory – he didn’t know if his nose had ever been subjected to anything so confusing.

Their postures were so true to type he could nearly read their minds as he looked at each of them in turn. Aaron was nonchalant – this wasn’t his fault but he’d given as good as he’d gotten. Renee smiled so beatifically you’d never know she’d probably been a wild hellion in the melee. Allison inspected her nails, unconcerned with the damage to anything else. He didn’t bother spending too much time looking at Neil or Andrew, he’d only get poker faces from them. Dan looked like she might be brainstorming an explanation. Matt was trying to suppress a grin. Kevin seemed shell-shocked he’d been drawn in at all. He stared at Nicky, who was trying to shuffle and hide behind Neil – a preposterous effort.

Deciding to start there, Wymack pointed a finger at him. “Nicky. What the fuck happened?”

Nicky offered the best attempt at doe-eyed innocence Wymack had seen from him yet.  It was still far from convincing. “Ah, we were cooking?”

Nobody volunteered to fill the silence after Nicky’s incredibly weak explanation. If there had been a wall clock the subtle ticking of the hands might have done something to break the strain. As it was, they all clammed up.

Being far from stupid, Wymack stared hard at Nicky. “Cooking. And somehow, all the coordination each of you has an athlete somehow failed in the kitchen. Meaning you all missed bowls and pans in favor of combining the ingredients on each other instead? Is that what you’re telling me, Nicky?”

A glob of something that might have been pancake batter splotched onto Nicky’s ruined apron from his hair as he tried nodding innocently.

“Anyone else want to try something better?”  Wymack’s tone held a resigned skepticism that did not bode well.

Allison sighed as if this was too tiresome for words. “The Monsters weren’t helping so a mild scuffle resulted and then things got a little out of hand.” Nobody denied it – Andrew’s group wouldn’t be bothered to argue one way or another and the upperclassmen probably agreed with the gist of this explanation even if it wasn’t completely representative.

Wymack sighed and scrubbed his face with one hand. “You can’t kill each other at a charity breakfast, okay? We’re trying to get some good P.R. for you guys with this Breakfast with Champions thing after everything that happened this year, alright? This breakfast is for kids in sports, we can’t exactly promise their parents the lot of you are good role models if you can’t handle pancakes without violence.”

Andrew’s laconic, “Sorry, we forgot” earned him a disapproving look but he shrugged, uncaring and unconcerned.

Rene’s calm assurance, “Don’t worry, we still have time. We’ll get this cleaned up and have something ready to serve before they get here,” was so certain and serene that Wymack was tempted to believe her.

Sensing her moment, Dan spoke up next. “Right. Okay, we’ve got three tasks right now and need to divide into teams to tackle it. We need someone to go to the store and get more supplies, we need to clean this current mess up, and we need to prepare actual food for the kiddos. Any preferences?”

“Renee, you’re with me and Kevin. Let’s go shopping.” Andrew’s statement was met with some surprise since he’d excluded Neil, but they were waved off easily enough.

Aaron sighed, “I’ll clean.” It was everything reluctant and resentful but he put truth to his words by heading to the sink and began trying to scrub up some of the pots and pans.

Matt’s cheerful, “I’ll clean for now and switch to prep when they get back with more stuff” was a clear shift back to teamwork and the others called out their choices and set to work.

Wymack didn’t know why he was surprised. They’d shown him time and again that they could bounce back from the brink of exterminating each other if it suited them. But with a sharp reminder that they had better work fast and for Allison to redo Neil’s makeup before the kids got there, he left them to it.

Abby was waiting just outside the warzone that usually functioned as a community center’s kitchen, and she looped her arm around his waist, leaning against him in a silent show of support. None of the Foxes were there to see it, but it would have netted Allison an easy $300 on the pool concerning Abby’s affectionate nature with their cranky coach.

The Foxes that were still in the kitchen worked speedily, equally motivated by guilt and the challenge, and they had repaired most of the damage by the time Andrew, Renee, and Kevin returned. They were carrying more bags than expected, but once they toppled the contents onto a newly-gleaming counter, the plan became clear.

Just under an hour later, the excited chatter of kids flooding into the activity center combined with the business of assembling plates for them. A giant bowl of fruit salad – mostly already prepared trays from the grocery store that they’d hastily augmented with additional fruit before dumping the contents into an appropriate serving vessel – was next to a heaping mound of muffins. The boxed mixes had been fast to assemble and they had a variety ranging from apple-cinnamon to banana-nut to chocolate-chip. An enormous platter of bacon – half of it prepared to be floppy and half of it on the crisp side – was sending a tantalizing aroma throughout the space. They’d thrown together a do-it-yourself oatmeal bar with a large tureen of plain oatmeal and trays of mix-ins and syrups alongside.

It was here, with kids scrambling around in near wild abandon, that everyone surreptitiously kept an eye on Andrew. Nobody had been entirely positive he wouldn’t skip interacting with their guests altogether.  When he remained in the open – money was exchanged between Matt and Renee; the latter all smiles as she collected her winnings. Andrew didn’t precisely turn into a ray of sunshine around the kids, but he could be seen sneaking extra chocolate chips into bowls of oatmeal and he may or may not have made faces with fruit, bacon, and muffins on the plates he arranged. The others caught on and soon a ridiculous, if unofficial, contest to out-do one another as they made faces with the kid’s choices ensued.

Neil called him on it during a brief lull in the hustle and bustle. “You like kids, Andrew? You’re pretty good at this.”

Andrew shot a disdainful look Neil’s way as he swirled the ladle for the fruit salad. “97%, Josten. Go make yourself useful and get me some more of this crap.”

The smile on Neil’s face as he padded away was all things indulgent and smitten. But he managed to get it under control as he returned with more of the fruit to dump in the bowl. He would not put it past Andrew to start another food fight otherwise.

Before Neil could turn away, Andrew murmured, casually and seemingly at random, “Lot of foster homes have different aged kids. Almost everyone likes to play with their food though.” Perhaps sensing Neil’s interest, Andrew shook his head and tossed a muffin his way. “Go away, Josten. The hordes are getting restless.”

Neil caught it laughingly and ate the snack quickly before he went back to work. He felt content in a way that was peculiar to this chaotic group of people that shouldn’t work, but somehow did. As he looked out over the room, Neil realized Wymack had been right to suggest this. It wasn’t just about getting them some good publicity, although the cameras and reporters were obligingly covering it – Wymack pleading with Neil to behave just this once if they asked him anything. This was closer to the Exy they had all first found – something just theirs and free – versus the painful shadows the Ravens and personal loses had dealt. It was touted as a charity breakfast with a scrimmage to follow, but being with his family right then, Neil felt it was like another win.


End file.
